


Rocket cheats at cards

by Woozletania



Series: Rocket headcanons [2]
Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gambling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-21
Updated: 2017-09-21
Packaged: 2019-01-01 04:12:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12148377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Woozletania/pseuds/Woozletania
Summary: Another bit of world building.  I was working on a fic with Rocket cheating at cards as a plot element and typed this out on my phone to order my thoughts.





	Rocket cheats at cards

He cheats. All the time. He has a couple of ways he does it. The first is that his literally superhumanly acute sense of touch allows him to sense minute imperfections in the backs of the cards when he touches them and his almost equally good eyesight allows him to make these out from the far side of a gaming table. He doesn’t even need to mark the cards with his sharp little claws, just the residual fingerprints from bald bodies or the tiny scratches left by his leathery fingerpads are enough. Even if you don’t let him touch the cards or deal (because naturally he is an ace at stacking the deck) he soon figures out which cards are which from looking at the backs as the cards are played and hands are revealed.

At second method of cheating, if you can even call it that, was something he developed when he fell in with a group of gamblers so good at reading body language that they always knew if he had a good or bad hand. He eventually realized what was going on and proceeded to perform minor surgery on himself to allow him to start pre-programmed movement routines in his cybernetics. Essentially his movement becomes subtly robotic and all he has to do is focus on keeping his facial expression neutral and not moving his ears. (His mood-driven ear postures are a significant tell once you know him very well.)

The first time he did this when playing Lylla she was utterly horrified. Her tremendous ability to read body language (as part of her diplomatic “programming”) told her at once that something was wrong. It was the uncanny valley of body movements and though she didn’t know how he did it she at once begged him never to do it again. That meant essentially agreeing to always lose to her at cards (never play cards with a diplomat) or at best play evenly (if he knew what she had because of his first method of cheating) but Rocket agreed, mostly because who can say no to a cute ottery face?

As with several other annoying Rocket habits, this one has its roots in his horrible upbringing. When the choice is starve or win at cards you quickly lose any interest in playing fair. Rocket was faced with the choice of eating garbage or rats or using his meager funds to try to win more money and use that to eat and live better. This was not a hard decision and as a result he was eventually banned from many casinos and card rooms because while they often weren’t sure how he cheated, they were still sure he did.

This amoral practicality shows up in many other aspects of Rocket’s personality, such as his merciless fighting style. He’s small and mean and won’t hesitate to claw, bite or punch people in the throat (or even more sensitive places.) he’s a mean little guy because it was the only way to survive in a galaxy fully of people twice his height who almost invariably treated him as a freak. The only good news was that they usually underestimated him, too.

Even with his bounty hunter income and gambling, Rocket was usually short of money right up until he joined the Guardians. Customers routinely shorted the “little freak” on payments despite his habit of lashing out when it happened. As a result he was several pounds underweight when he met Peter and his fur became noticeably glossier between Xandar and Ego just because he was no longer malnourished.


End file.
